Should Forrest City switch to a heat pump?

This one's marginal in Forrest City: it only clears if you stay long enough. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $3,500 more up front here (already netting out a $2,000 tax credit). That premium is recovered through $346 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 10.1 years. It's a genuine toss-up here — Forrest City's numbers don't point clearly either way.

Forrest City's weather, in the numbers that matter

Forrest City has a mild winter by US standards — 2736 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, at 1964 cooling degree days. The 99% winter design temperature here — the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average — is 8.1°F, against a record low of -6°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.89 for the recommended cold-climate unit. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Forrest City — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. These numbers come from WEST MEMPHIS MUNICIPAL APT, the closest NOAA station, 32.7 miles out.

What it actually costs to run, year to year

Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 2,397 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $541 a year. Forrest City's gas rate of 19.25 per Mcf, applied to the 28 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $887 a year, against 13.28¢ per kWh for electricity. Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 39 years, leaving the 15-year total $1,687 ahead.

If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas

Not every home in Forrest City has gas service. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Forrest City's answer improves. The saving here runs about $717 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 11.2 years.

How Forrest City compares nationally

Forrest City lands at position 2020 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 2762 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.

Next step for 12,340 people in Forrest City

Forrest City, Arkansas is home to about 12,340 people, and the figures above are the same ones a local HVAC contractor uses to size and quote a system — this site doesn't guess where a real quote would land, it just tells you whether it's worth asking for one. In Forrest City, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.

Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.

Where Forrest City's figure comes from

Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Forrest City's 2.89 seasonal COP and payback figure. At a 8.1°F design temperature, Forrest City sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.